


A Baby Yoda Walks Into a Bar

by sadlikeknives



Category: The Mandalorian (TV)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-14
Updated: 2020-02-14
Packaged: 2021-02-27 23:55:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,685
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22654357
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sadlikeknives/pseuds/sadlikeknives
Summary: "Hey!" the Devaronian behind the bar called out, and Cara realized with a start he was talking to her.  "You can't have your baby in here!  This is a bar!"
Relationships: Baby Yoda & The Mandalorian (The Mandalorian TV), Baby Yoda (The Mandalorian TV) & Cara Dune, Baby Yoda (The Mandalorian TV) & Cara Dune & The Mandalorian (The Mandalorian TV)
Comments: 14
Kudos: 282
Collections: Chocolate Box - Round 5





	A Baby Yoda Walks Into a Bar

**Author's Note:**

  * For [flipflop_diva](https://archiveofourown.org/users/flipflop_diva/gifts).



Cara's ride was late—possibly dead, you never knew with bounty hunters—so she'd stopped off at this backwater's one bar for a drink or five while she waited for him to show up. She'd give him a day before she contacted Karga about whether she needed to make other plans. She was sitting in the corner wondering if she had enough time to go a few rounds in the underground fighting ring the bar turned out to host, as a few extra credits would never go amiss, when something tugged at her boot. Her first instinct was to kick without looking, but she looked down first and found...a kid.

Not just a kid. _The_ kid. Tiny, green, big ears, big eyes. She would hope it was some other random specimen of a species she'd only seen one of in her entire life, except for how he was wearing that same ratty brown coat and looking up at her like she was his favorite auntie.

Well, she thought. Good thing she hadn't kicked it first. Mando would have never let her hear the end of it. Speaking of... "Where's your dad, kid?"

The kid just cooed. Very helpful.

"Still not verbal, huh?" Cara asked. What the hell. She reached down and picked the kid up, perching him on her knee. "If you try to choke me again all bets are off," she warned him. "I'll toss you in that fighting pit and call it a day." The kid just looked up at her, like he knew perfectly well she would do no such thing. "I will," she lied.

"Hey!" the Devaronian behind the bar called out, and Cara realized with a start he was talking to her. "You can't have your baby in here! This is a bar!"

Cara took a moment to recover from the shock of a bartender who ran a fight ring having the moral standards to object to an infant in a bar before she argued, "This isn't my baby." The Devaronian just looked pointedly at where the kid was perched on Cara's knee, looking downright pleased with the arrangement. "This is my friend's baby," she admitted.

The Devaronian glared suspiciously. "Well, where's your friend?"

"That...is a very good question. Where's your dad?" she asked the kid again. The kid, of course, said nothing. She sighed and drained her glass before picking up the kid and standing. The ale here tasted like piss, anyway. "Okay, then. Let's go find your dad."

The kid made a happy sort of sound and patted one weird little hand against her shoulder. She tried to pretend it wasn't the cutest thing she'd ever seen, and mostly failed even within her own head. "Yeah," she said. "We'll find your dad." It occurred to her that the Mandalorian might be in trouble, but if that was true she thought the odds were against it happening where she happened to be, and the kid just so happening to find her out of everyone on this rock. Much more likely that the kid had just wandered off. 

Then again, the kid was weird.

Well, if he was in trouble, Cara would get him out of it. Either way, the Mandalorian had to be losing his mind wondering where his kid was, and maybe Cara could con him into taking her back to Nevarro. If the stupid Twi'lek who was supposed to be her ride showed up and missed her, that was his problem.

Cara bounced the kid lightly in the crook of her arm because she was pretty sure kids liked that, and asked him, "What do you think? Market or spaceport?" The kid just cooed again, and Cara nodded. "You're right, the spaceport's closer. Let's go look for your dad at that busted-up junkbucket you guys call a house."

The Mandalorian wasn't at the spaceport, although Cara did locate his ship and was able to leave a note for him with the mechanic working on the latest round of repairs to the poor thing. The note said, _Hey, Mando, I have your kid. If I don't find you by the time my ride gets here I'm taking him back to Nevarro with me, love, Cara,_ which she figured should light a fire under his ass if he found it before she found him. Next, they tried the market. The kid got tired of being carried after a while and insisted on being put down, which meant that Cara's options were walking _v e r y s l o w l y_ or having to stop and wait for him, or at least check that he was still there, approximately every thirty seconds. She rapidly came to understand how his dad had misplaced him, and told him so as he attempted to catch some kind of grasshopper thing that hopped across the path in front of him.

Five seconds later, only a frantic lunge on Cara's part kept the grasshopper thing out of the kid's mouth, and then his tiny face crumpled in sadness and disappointment. "No, look, hey, hey," she said. "That could be poisonous. You don't know. I sure as fu—fun don't know! But if you're hungry, I'll buy you some food at the market, okay? What do you eat? You eat meat?" She was pretty sure he ate meat. "Yeah, I bet they have some kind of delicious meat thing at the market, and maybe your dad will be there! And then he can buy it for you and save me the credits! It'll be great."

The kid looked unconvinced, but he allowed Cara to pick him up again, so they made better time the rest of the way to the market. She found a vendor selling meat on skewers—she knew better than to ask exactly what kind of meat—and bought one for the kid, but then the skewer was both too hot and too pointy for her to just hand it to the kid, so she was walking through the crowd with the kid restrained by one arm, trying desperately to reach across her body to get to the skewer, which she was blowing on to cool, when she saw a flash of something shiny through the crowd. In her distraction, the kid somehow managed to yank the skewer away from her, and then she had a real struggle on her hands keeping him from accidentally stabbing himself in the face.

Cara was never having kids.

By the time she wrestled the skewer back away from the kid and got enough hands free to pry one of the chunks of meat off and give it to him—he stuffed it in his mouth whole and grabbed for another, which Cara also quickly supplied—the shiny something was nowhere to be seen, but Cara started in that direction anyway. By the time she saw another flash of sunlight off metal, the skewer had been emptied, and Cara just dropped it on the ground, littering seeming preferable to carrying around the accidental baby poking implement any longer than she had to. The crowd parted again and—yes! That was a whole-ass Mandalorian! The question was, was it _her_ Mandalorian? "Is that your dad?" she asked the kid, but then again, would the kid be able to tell? The kid just looked at her, then toward the Mandalorian, and then back at her. His expression told her nothing. Typical.

As she started pushing through the crowd, trying to get a closer look at the Mandalorian, she wondered if the kid had a name yet, something she could call him other than 'the kid.' And it _was_ her Mandalorian; she saw him hold up his hands, demonstrating for the proprietor of the stall he was at that he was looking for something roughly the size of his kid, and his cape fell aside, revealing the sigil of a Mudhorn on his pauldron. "We found your dad!" she told the kid, and raised her voice, calling, "Hey! Mando! Looking for something?"

The Mandalorian turned, paused, then started pushing through the crowd toward them. He had more luck than Cara had had, as, despite also being armored and heavily armed, she had been somewhat hampered by the baby. As he got close, the kid started reaching, straining out of her arms toward his dad, and Cara handed him over as soon as he was within arm's reach. The kid trilled with joy and patted his father's helmet.

The Mandalorian muttered, "Hey, you little womp rat," to his kid, then asked her, "Cara? What are you doing here?" Despite knowing his name, Cara couldn't think of him as 'Djarin.' Based on what she understood of his religion, he probably preferred that she didn't. Actually, maybe it would be rude to ask what the kid's name was.

"Errand for Karga, waiting for my ride. Long story."

"How did you find him?"

"He found me, actually. I figured we'd better find you. And here you are!"

"He can disappear in the blink of an eye," the Mandalorian said, and despite the vocal modulation of the helmet, his exasperation came through loud and clear. "Thank you. Can I...buy you a drink?"

"The bar doesn't want kids inside. Ask me how I know." The Mandalorian was as taken aback as Cara had been by the idea of a drinking establishment with _standards_. Despite the armor, she could just _tell_. "I don't suppose you're headed anywhere in the direction of Nevarro," she said as her comm chimed.

"No, sorry," the Mandalorian said, but that was okay.

"My ride's here, anyway. You," she told the kid. "Stay closer to your dad, you little womp rat. And you--"

"Don't lose him, I know. Take care, Cara."

"You, too," she told him, and with one last pat for the kid's head, she headed back to the spaceport at a jog. They were already running late; no reason to dawdle and make them even further behind.

This, she decided, had probably been a better use of her time than drinking and kicking someone's ass. Maybe.


End file.
